With that, she finally hit the boil and was up and after me, swiping and swiping at me with a bloodied tea towel, when the front door knocked. I ran for the stairs while Mammy tore through the pantry to roar at the person to come round to the back door. It was Lizzie’s mammy, Dirty Sheila Magee. Sheila wanted to know if I was alright, only Lizzie hadn’t heard from me and they both knew how prone I was to bronchitis.

–  She’s grand. Just a chest infection so she’s laid up and can’t come down. Best she stays where she is ’til she gets better, don’t you think?

–  Aye, of course, but tell her we were askin’ after her? Maybe she can come down and stay for a night when she’s well?

–  We’ll see. Good day to you now, Mrs Magee.

Would the Magees want to see me when another few months had gone by? What would they do with my toothbrush? Would Dessie still think I was gorgeous?

I heard Daddy coming back with John Johns and unusually John came into the house. I don’t think he’d been through the back door in the past five years, as men had their chats outside, leaning on gates. I heard all three of their voices speaking low in the kitchen. I wanted to know how Daddy was but I couldn’t sit in the same room as John Johns. What if he guessed that I was in trouble? What if Bridie had broken the habit of a lifetime and dobbed me in?

They droned on and on, mostly my mother’s voice and the sound of my father clearing his throat over and over again. John’s voice was a rumble under the floorboards. Finally my mother made a sound which I had thought I wouldn’t hear again for a while. She was laughing, the resentful cak, cak, cak like a machine gun beneath my feet.

By the by, John Johns left and when the phut-phut of the tractor engine faded a little I heard my mother on the phone, sounding altogether too cheerful. She never called anyone except Vi or Harriet and then only if someone had died violently. They loved a good wake. Ham sandwiches don’t criticise themselves, y’know? The stairs creaked as Mammy made her way to me.

–  Well, lady, I have news. Don’t you want to know what it is?

–  Yes, Mammy.